A closer look at Myst IV: History of Spire
by G Marshall
Summary: After numerous plays of my copy of Myst IV: Revelation, it bothered me that so much architectural beauty on the Age of Spire had gone to waste. I really can't believe Atrus saying that it was never inhabited, so this story explains a possible past for that Age, before Atrus or Sirrus ever Linked there.


From what we know in Myst IV: Revelation, Atrus had believed his Prison Age of Spire to be completely uninhabited from the beginning. I, for one, disagree with that belief. The broken stone palaces look much too intricate to have been there without people to have constructed them in the past. Sirrus believed that there was a violent, xenophoboic civilization as well. Perhaps they were, but also highly intelligent. Whatever the case may be, these points were supported by my constant interest in what those rock palaces would have looked like intact, and possibly inhabited. So, I have written a short story detailing the Age of Spire before Atrus linked to it.

Too long ago to recount, a group of humanoid beings appeared on the world of Spire by unknown means. By then, Spire was no more than floating gargantuan masses of rock and crystal sitting in two thick layers of thunderclouds. Thankfully, these humanoids were endowed with enough intellect to construct a series of palaces from these masses, and a Middle Ages-like society soon arose from them. Each palace held a few dozen members each, and the tallest palace – which later served as the Age's Linking point – was the home of Spire's king. Like Sirrus, they utilized rock and the many crystals that grew around the age for power and building materials, and crafted a great number of items out of them, ranging from swords with electrical fields, armor made from thick plates of stone, flying vehicles, and even a crystal organ similar to Sirrus' Throne. For decades, these citizens prospered and had everything they ever wanted. Merchants and messengers traveled between the palaces to trade with others or relay news, male members of certain families became knighted – using the same symbols Sirrus used later, which he didn't know already existed, as heraldic emblems; public duels were held, and much more.

Even with all these pleasantries to go around, the world of Spire still remained as dark and cold as it did when Atrus came around, as its sun was so far away it could not be seen at any time of day. All they had to rely on for time was its moon. Some of the lower class citizens died from hypothermia in poorly constructed living quarters, and many of the clumsiest or depressed fell to their deaths from the palace edges. And yet, the King only took these events lightly. He shrugged the protests off, usually saying, "One less insane man does not compare to the thousands of sane people. If one cares about their living conditions, they alone must be the ones to dictate them, not me."

Most of the outer palace's inhabitants stayed in their own domains, although they still communicated with the others from time to time. The only enemies that were ever encountered were revealed within and fought down quickly.

This long period of prosperity and utopian society lasted from around 1100 to 1456 AD, then in the 16th century, a disease broke out on one of the farthest palaces, and eventually spread to the others when one of the infected citizens traded his goods at the main palace. Dozens died every day until a cure was found within the vegetables that grew there. A medicinal potion was created to fix the disease and soon society returned to normal in 1541.

After that, in 1582, several knights flew off in self-propelled rock ships from the main palace to map what lay beyond the ring of palaces, but only one came back, and her charts detailed an enormous asteroid-belt-like barrier of huge floating rocks. Her partners crashed into the rocks before they could turn around and go back, and the king concluded that those rocks would forever keep them locked in their zone of palaces. (This is much like the Mist Wall in Age 37) The event also proved wrong some of the lower class citizens of the existence of savages outside their domains.

Prosperity gradually returned in the 17th century, but when the American Revolution rolled around on Earth, a lightning storm on Spire caused more people to die in their own homes. To explain in more detail, the teravolts of electricity were drawn in by every crystal in the palaces, and the result caused almost every surface in those buildings to be full of uncontrolled voltage. As a result, anyone who touched those surfaces soon died from electrocution, leaving the smarter few to remain in bed until the storms stopped. On the bright side, the King's organ produced more powerful music than ever before, because lucky for him, his section of the main palace was insulated by layers of pure stone.

As such, Spire had been through much more noteworthy bad events than good, making its mood just about fit for Sirrus.

One day during the year 1798, a young scientist – the son of the King's top sentry who lived and watched from the Main palace's spire-shaped tower - made serious observations into the world of Spire itself, something most of the citizens never did. In fact, no one was allowed to look below the second cloud layer due to the king's decree, which he did. This scientist found that the entire planet was held together by a radioactive core that also had an extremely strong magnetic field, holding the other palaces above or in the cloud layers, but he also noted that the core's brilliant green radiance grew stronger and stronger every week. He even tried throwing a floating rock at the core and noticed that not only did it rocket away at such a high speed, the force's friction made it burn. Then he tried a rock without that mineral and watched it burn up in mere seconds while being yards away from the core itself Although he couldn't explain how, the core was about to reach the equivalent of a supernova.

"Your majesty, I have conclusive evidence to suggest that our civilization will not last much longer if we do not find some way to evacuate this world," The boy pleaded to the King.

"You cannot be serious. Our world has flourished for centuries, so how can it be so that we must leave?" The king denied in his usual disbelieving manner.

"I saw below the 2nd cloud layer. The palaces are kept aloft by magnetic fields generated by a radioactive core, which I have deduced will reach critical mass in a matter of days."

"You did WHAT?! I strictly decreed that no citizen must go below that layer! Are you aware of the consequences for breaking my laws, young man?"

"Please, just listen to one of your citizens for once! Have you ever gotten anything important through that thick skull of yours in the time our civilization has existed?"

"I'm sorry, young man, but I never have the patience to listen to anyone unless I ask for them to talk. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, and that seems to show that you are not a very good king."

"GET OUT OF MY THRONE ROOM, BOY!"

Clearly, this boy researcher had picked the wrong person to talk to. Then he tried his father, who replied, "I'm sorry, but I can't help you, and if the King won't listen, then there are only two solutions: Either try to contact the queen, or come up with a way to stabilize this 'magnetic core' you keep referring to."

Neither of those solutions looked promising. No one his family knew had even mentioned the existence of a queen, and it looked quite impossible to do anything significant to the world's core, since everything was repelled by its magnetic field and hardly anything would be attracted to it. Then the boy pondered another theory: Even though they couldn't reach other areas of the planet, would the citizens be able to craft vehicles that would cause a magnetic repulsion so strong that they'd be able to fly into space?

Next he consulted the kingdom's top designer in rock-based vehicles, and her answer was that the only way to achieve this feat would be to concentrate a strong amount of the mineral that keeps rocks floating, in an area that the core would affect. In other words, they'd need all of the floating mineral for each vehicle to be concentrated in one spot that would make a strong enough magnetic repulsion.

The boy feared that he wouldn't have enough time to do all this, and his fears were well-founded.

As the day grew on, violent unexpected shakings occurred from time to time, and this convinced some of the lower citizens to help this boy. They set about modifying the existing rock ships by extracting their minerals with crystal-harnessed electricity and welding them back to their sterns or bases. But even though the King's squires insisted that they evacuate Spire, he would not budge. As it showed, he was all wrapped up in the belief that nothing could harm his kingdom, only further supported by an ego not much different than Gehn's.

By the equivalent of 5:50 PM, all the ships were ready, but the lower cloud layer was glowing a bright green and the shakings had grown into one continuous earthquake-like rumble. The palaces began to crumble in response as every citizen hopped into their ships and powered them on, but at that very moment, a deafening explosion roared through the entire Age, and every single citizen fell into Spire's core as it blew off the excess energy and metamorphosized to the equivalent of a neutron star. The King perished in his throne room as it caved in and plummeted out of the palace.

Now every palace was left in pieces, large and small, and every trace of human habitation was wiped out, save for the crops of vegetables.

And so, this is how Spire came to look when Atrus wrote a link to it. If he had done it sooner, perhaps been more specific in his writing, and if it wasn't designed as a prison age, he would have seen the heyday of Spire before it became the domain of Sirrus. On the other hand, if that was the case with Sirrus, he would have changed the face of their organization considerably, so it was for the best that they both arrived too late.


End file.
